Trailer for Downsizing is weird, smart, and totally unexpected

Here's the first trailer for Downsizing, directed by indie mastermind Alexander Payne (Election, The Descendants).

I love burning apocalypses as much as the next person, but sometimes the explodey blockbuster formula makes you forget how mind-bending and screwed up science fiction can really be. That's why Alexander Payne's new flick Downsizing, about people trying to save money by shrinking themselves, is a welcome respite from the usual.

Payne has won Oscars twice for his screenplays—first for Sideways and then The Descendants—and Downsizing will be his first foray into science fiction. His movies have always been oddball stories tinged with a bit of the surreal, usually focusing on regular guys who get in way over their heads in outlandish situations.

That's definitely the pattern in Downsizing, in which Matt Damon puts on his best friendly dork persona as Paul (it fits him nicely). He's married to Audrey (Kristen Wiig), and they both appear to be struggling with the stress of their jobs and making ends meet. That's when they find out about a bizarre new technology, developed by scientists in Norway, that can permanently shrink people down to the size of Barbie dolls. The idea is to live more sustainably on the planet, but it also turns out that everything is cheaper when you shrink. In the trailer, we see Paul and Audrey meeting with some kind of financial adviser, who explains that their savings will be worth millions in the downsized community.

We catch glimpses of Paul and Audrey's new life as downsized people, living in a mansion with a tennis court and taking expensive cruises on toy boats. It seems idyllic, but this is an Alexander Payne movie, so I guarantee there are hidden catches in the giant contract agreement that we see Paul signing.

This film promises to do what science fiction does best. It gives us a strange, speculative playground in which to grapple with our present-day fears about economic and environmental collapse. And it pokes fun at how easily people can be talked into "solutions" that are too good to be true. The tone reminds me a lot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, another seriously bizarro scifi movie that uses its futuristic technology to explore very realistic problems in human relationships.

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick the Chinese were miniaturizing themselves to solve their overcrowding problems. This wasn't a very major part of the book, but when I looked it up to see which Vonnegut novel it actually was I realized that it was the only thing I remembered from it.

You would also appear to have superhuman strength thanks to the cube-square law

Movie probably doesn't touch on that though

That and most of the cost of living today stems not from raw materials but rather the labor/capital that's involved in transforming and manipulating that raw material into something useful. The raw costs of an iPhone aren't all that high. It's the salaries of the engineers/marketers/administrators/etc. that have to design, manufacture, transport, and advertise the iPhone that drive up the cost.

Smaller people may need less fod, but how will they operate regular sized tractors (though I suppose minature controls could be made, but that is a heck of a ladder to climb to get to the cab.

And miniaturization is not always cheaper (computers for example)

Interesting thoght experiment though

Brian

Obviously, this won't work for laborers or a lot of unskilled workers. Even fast food employees are going to be problematic, because their labor cost will be out of line with the product they're delivering. However, for office workers and managers? This could be a thing.

The most significant expenses are housing, transportation, and fuel. If you can fit your whole house in a room the size of a closet, your rent goes from thousands of dollars a month to something like $100. If you eat what amounts to a crouton a day, your food bill goes down to a few dollars a month. Transportation is a little more complicated, but I can imagine paying $1000 for a doll-sized car, rather than $50,000.

Now computers, phones, and personal electronics are going to be larger, relatively speaking. There's no easy solution there; that stuff is still going to be expensive, and it will have be... different. However, if you cut out 3/4 of your largest monthly expenses, the remaining stuff can even be a little more pricey and still be a huge net gain for the consumer.

As a journalist at the opening in Venice last week, I can confirm that this is a very good movie. It's also an excellent introduction to soft sci-fi for anyone unfamiliar with or distrustful of the genre. Some of my colleagues, in fact, were hesitant even to place it in that category.

I won't spoil any of the plot, Annalee, but your guess about that contract is a miss, I'm afraid. But, do see the film when it comes out. I'll definitely be seeing it again and with friends, to analyze it together afterwords over beers.

It's kind of like what happens when you let your government perpetuate fascistic memes. Because it's convenient not to participate in your citizen's duty, even if you degrade your own voice and rights and metaphorically reduce the footprint of your power for good.

SF writer James P. Hogan wrote a really fun story called "Bug Park", which ddin't outright shrink people (that's sorta bonkers) - instead the characters built telepresence robots at a vastly reduced size. I don't remember the exact scale, the "mecs" were the size of a large insect, say 2 inches max. The first thing they did was put together a machine shop at scale (it fit in a small storage box) and made much more refined versions of the same bots. They talk about doing the same thing again (building littler machine tools in the little machine shop), but things like motors start acting really weird at rice sized.

Anyway, the point was, having the dexterity of a human scaled down to this size is absolutely wonderful for making useful devices. Not only would you use a lot less space, but your arts and crafts would RULE.

Saw it today at TIFF. It was quite funny, but also heartfelt and serious, grappling with some really serious themes. It works because it never takes itself too seriously. It's a different kind of movie, that's for sure - one that doesn't stick to the Moviemaking for Dummies blueprint. Interestingly, the initial reviews from Venice were really positive, and then it premiered at Telluride and American reviewers were considerably more critical (even sour). I don't think most of that is justified - the Americans just had to prove they were not just copying earlier reviews and that they are serious thinking men (and women). It might be said that it could have been better for sticking with just one of those big issues, but Payne handles it well, in a way a lesser film maker could not. His ability to put together a complex movie in a way that flows is second to none.

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick the Chinese were miniaturizing themselves to solve their overcrowding problems. This wasn't a very major part of the book, but when I looked it up to see which Vonnegut novel it actually was I realized that it was the only thing I remembered from it.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (Philip K. Dick) also has a somewhat similar subplot (deprived colonists taking a drug to mentally inhabit glamourous dolls and their luxe accessories).

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick the Chinese were miniaturizing themselves to solve their overcrowding problems. This wasn't a very major part of the book, but when I looked it up to see which Vonnegut novel it actually was I realized that it was the only thing I remembered from it.